Yet again this weekend I had conversations with animators who adore Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin,” but don’t consider the film to be animation, but performance capture, which is a visual effect. Thus the film from Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital did dominate the Visual Effects Society (VES) film categories with six nominations. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” followed with five nominations apiece, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “Rango” with four, and “Hugo” and “Puss in Boots,” three. HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” led the television field.

Will I have to adjust my Oscar Predictions Chart based on the overlap between the VES Awards and the VFX Oscar? Well, the five nominees in the Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture category are “Captain America: The First Avenger,” “Harry Potter,” “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” All five nominees are on the Academy’s shortlist of ten. My list does not include “Captain America” or “Pirates.” I went instead with “Hugo” and “The Tree of Life” from the shortlist. The Academy could still take that route on nominations morning.

The VES nominees cover 11 film categories of a total 23 categories in animation, television, commercials, special venues and video games. At the February 7 award ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel (aired on Reelz Channel) , the organization will honor Stan Lee with the VES 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award and Douglas Trumbull (“2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Tree of Life”) with the Georges Méliès Award.

Zhao said with her Bass Reeves biopic, she’ll direct a more traditional cast like she did with her first-timers: “You can work with an actor in a certain way, you can create an environment like Terrence Malick has always done.”